Files
For those of you that want to see the whole list and play with the data, I’ve made the CSV file and some of the raw processed stuff. I’d throw in the amateur scripts I used too but it would be too embarrassing to publish.

The fact that most of the data is probably false doesn’t prove nor disprove the “bury brigade”, but the data that is true actually raises some questions to the effectiveness of a feature that is being misused by so many.

Baron
Great recap. Thank you. Interesting stuff. I don’t know if there is any proof of a real bury brigade. But it does show that the ability to bury anonymously leads people to overuse it (the top bury guy almost has 300).

Ajay,
I have no idea but obviously the same time frame as the stories being buried. I just reformatted it.

Jeremiah ,
I agree. We’re not looking for proof per se because that’s sitting right on Digg’s own database but to point out a problem. There are obviously people who for one reason or another decide to go around burying stories rather than making a positive contribution.

Digidave,
Thanks. I don’t think there is a real “bury brigade” as in haXX0rs using IRCs to coordinate their next nefarious move but individuals clued in on the fact that burying a story can wield great impact with little consequences.

Do you ever feel dumbfounded about seeing something strange going on on Digg , trying to find the explanation in TOS or FAQ – but without any results, of course? Recently it is too often that we see good stories buried without any evident reason. Blogs…

Wow, I’d never thought I’d ever show up in the Top 100 of anything Digg related let alone the top 20. Anyway, as apparently part of the “brigade” I must be a lone soldier as I’ve never schemed or consulted or even talked to anyone else on that list. Anyway, as I Digg I do one of three things, 1) if I like the story, I Digg the story, 2) if I’m apathetic towards the story, I ignore the story (which is why I know I didn’t bury “Coca-Cola redesigns cans” and most of the other buries attributed to me) 3) if I find the story to be distasteful (spam, racist, etc) or tired and pointless (most navel-gazing self-referential Digg threads pointing out there is a conspiracy of gamers or buriers or some other nonsense based upon spurious evidence), I bury it.

Considering that Digg keeps all threads open that don’t violate the TOS, I don’t consider it censoring. I think of it as keeping the front pages clean of trash.

HMTKSteve,
Right now I’m not sure what’s going on. Looks like some of us are getting a “rep” and submissions are getting tougher and tougher to gain momentum.

Jared,
Too bad he didn’t collect more data before they closed the hole.

Disposable Rob,
Of course it’s each to their own but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I think the reason Digg gained momentum back in the day is because it was only positive voting (digg). Now we all see stories that are lame but if everybody buries something stories get stalled and less people submit. At least that’s the way I see it. I think it leads to a vicious cycle but only time will tell.

Stephen,
It’s not so much the bury itself but that it doesn’t properly function because it’s anonymous and there’s no count. I’d be more happy if it functioned like a down vote so the Diggs would go up and down. At least then we’d see where a story’s going. If it’s going to be completely anonymous I think it should function as a flagging system with Digg admins making the final call. That’s just my opinion of course.

I never thought there was anything wrong with burying per se. a problem would be if people got together and launched a coordinated burying campaign in the name of a specific agenda. but from the buried stories that you have listed, there doesn’t seem to be any ideological slant, does there? it just seems to be stories that people thought were lame, which is the point of the bury button in the first place. that is not to say that ideological “bury brigades” don’t exist, but you haven’t proven it here.

I’m on that list “emmsee”—haha, I buried 9 stories in 2 hours? Is that a lot? I don’t think so.
I’ll openly admit I bury all Supernova17 stories since it’s been confirmed he has taken money to submit stuff. Why support him?!

I dont know if your evidence really proves anything. I bury articles all the time, especially if I’ve seen them on Digg before which is quite frequent being a user for nearly 1.5 years. If an article is lame I bury it as well. If I disagree with it but it’s accurate I just ignore it. I’m sure 100s of others out there follow the same method I do.

P.S. I also bury whiny articles that have no point but to create conflict.

1. You are presuming to know why a story was buried and use that presumption to launch an unwarranted attack.
2. Quantity of buried stories does not indicate a conspiracy. It can simply mean the person has bothered to analyze the stories carefully.
3. If the numbers in the parenthesis represent number of buried stories, then most of the top list have a handful. THEY SHOULD AUTOMATICALLY BE REMOVED.
4. The bury feature is used to bury stories. WORKING AS INTENDED.

Seriously though—this story is proof enough to me that digg is bullshit. I don’t know what people see in it frankly…. del.icio.us is a better bookmarking site, and metafilter is better for content – plus when something gets buried, it’s clear why.

Why would a story need to be buried anyway? It’s one thing to be removed for a violation of policy (breaking posting guidelines, inflating hit counts, etc.)—but on a site based on being what’s the most popular, why would they allow people to hit a link with a negative?

It just invites minorities like this so-called bury brigade to come in and try to dictate to other people what they shouldn’t like. Why not build it as a separate site called “I’m scared of this” or something?

Hi. I am number one on the ‘Top 50’ buriers on digg. One morning, I started burying all Sony PS3 and Wii related articles because I was absolutely sick of hearing the fanboyism. Simply put: the fact that the Wii is selling better than the PS3, or that it has a new game on their Virtual Console is not front page news. The ‘Bury Brigade’ does not exist because we do not bury the same stories in coordination. In order for a true Bury Brigade to exist, the same stories must be buried in unison within a short amount of time to avoid the popularity that comes with being on the front page. All of the buries on the list are isolated except for the ones we found to be ‘universally lame’. Also, the list of 1700 buries is only of a 2 hour window, which is not representative of the overall digg story submission process. Each one of these stories could still reach the front page. However, I have resolved to stop burying stories without merit immediately. Thanks for your time.
glenjammin

If you dont find an article interesting, then ignore it and move on, period, don’t bury it. If its not cool, then no one will vote for it anyways and it will disappear.

If it really is lame then it logically shouldnt have gained enough votes to make it to the front page, theres no need to use buries for lameness. Just ignore what you don’t like and vote for what you do like. But when you bury stuff simply because you don’t like it you are affecting 1,000’s of other people who may be interested.

Save the buries for the real garbage (spam/viruses/broken links etc.) that is of no use to ANYONE, not just what you don’t like, or what is controversial.

Im really sick of important stuff getting buried to all hell simply because a large number of people find it offensive or don’t agree with it. If you wish to have your freedom of speech respected, then you must respect others. If you don’t agree with something write the reasons why in the comments section, thats what its there for, and if people would quit burying/flaming people with opposing view points it may actually be a useful tool for discussing articles.

Half of those articles were buried because they were dupes, and the rest were buried because they’re just plain stupid. On another note, I’m almost dissapointed that I wasn’t named in your list. Happy Hunting!!

[...] A tribute to the unsung heroes of Digg (Bury Brigade Top 50) – I consider Baron to be an associate of mine but, I can’t help wanting to club him over the head for this post! This should have been mine! He went and wrote a post so good even Wired.com linked to him… All kidding aside it’s still a good read. [...]

Yeah – I’m not sure how accurate this is. What’s the timeframe of these buries? All time? Past 30? Past week?

Because I can guarantee you that I’ve buried hundreds of stories, if not close to 1000 and I don’t see my name here.

Maybe I’m not clear on the criteria, but …

And, just to be clear, I don’t bury stories because I disagree with them. Debate is a great vehicle for progress. I only bury those that are poorly written, spam (real spam), lame one-line blog posts when the poster should have just submitted the actual story (I guess that amounts to “real spam”), and stories that are provably innacurate.

[...] members, the data sent the blogosphere buzzing. The buzzing quickly became a roar as more and more blogs began weighing in and accused users spoke up in their own defense. The situation peaked when [...]

Thank you all for commenting. As some of you have noted, the data is not only from a limited time window but noted for its inaccuracy by the person who collected it. Having said that I merely ran a script on the raw data to reformat it. It’s not for any conclusive evidence but more for a discussion which didn’t happen. I suppose the subject of burying will continue to be a hot topic for some time to come.

What I will say is that this whole debate is a product of the percieved decline in the quality of interactions on Digg. At least that’s my take. I appreciate the comments though it was quite a heated and interesting read.

I show up as a frequent burier, but I am certainly not trying to game the system.

I bury people who submit post after post to 1 and only 1 site, almost always their own blog. It is easy to verify by looking at their profile and seeing that they only submit or digg articles on 1 and only 1 site. I consider this spam and bury accordingly. This is especially annoying when 1 user submits 10-20 posts to their own site in a matter of as many minutes – I think you’ll agree that this happens quite often, and I don’t think there’s any other name for it but spam. Burying is an important function, it is not always “censorship” of views one disagrees with. There’s inhibition as well as excitation among neurons. Sure it can be abused, but burying on digg is probably mostly legitimate.

Well, I agree with how some people feel about it. I think it’s always a matter of micro versus macro where individuals do something they feel is right but it has different consequences when taken as an aggregate.

[...] The Puzzling Sanjaya Malakar Phenomenon 11Apr07 Powered by Gregarious (21)The Sanjaya Malakar wave sweeping the nation is puzzling indeed. There’s a lot of debate as to whether there is some kind of nefarious conspiracy to vote Sanjaya to the top and kill American Idol in the process. The debate is similar the one of whether Digg has a bury brigade. [...]

I’m also on the above list, and I have to say I’m a little offended. If you’re going to publish my profile name and accuse me of something, at least let me know. Send me an email, pm, or something, don’t just go publishing my account name for me to only find accidentally three years later. You realize that people can probably find personal info on me by googling my username and so you’re just setting me up for god knows what.

Luckily I think most of your readers see this “analysis” as totally flawed. Like some of the other commenters, I’m just a normal guy burying stories I think are inaccurate or misleading – exactly as you are supposed to on Digg, and have no idea who the others in “the brigade” are.